Articles
Items: 241 — 250
Jun 12, 2006
For survivors’ sake, abolish the death penalty
Monday, June 12, 2006BY RICHARD D.
Read MoreJun 01, 2006
NEW VOICES: Another Major Newspaper Calls for End to Capital Punishment
Reversing its long-standing support for capital punishment, the Spokane Spokesman-Review recently published an editorial calling for an end to capital punishment in the United States. The paper noted that the decision to change its stance on the death penalty came after careful consideration of growing evidence that the newspaper’s “expectations of fairness and justice” are not being met and that the death penalty’s “drawbacks now outweigh its merits.” The editorial in full: It took Jermaine…
Read MoreMay 19, 2006
NEW VOICES: Newspaper Changes Its Position-‘Commonsense Finding is that Death Penalty Has Failed and Should be Abolished’
An editorial in the Asbury Park Press, a newspaper that formerly supported capital punishment, called on New Jersey policymakers to abandon the state’s costly death penalty and replace it with the “sure and swift” sentence of life without parole. Stating that New Jersey has wasted millions of dollars on the death penalty, but has not carried out an execution since it was reinstated in1982, the editorial noted: Can it really be 22 years since Robert O. Marshall cowardly hired hit men to shoot…
Read MoreMay 17, 2006
Science Journal Recommends: “Let the death penalty die a natural death.”
A recent editorial in Nature, the international weekly journal of science, called on scientists and doctors to refuse to participate in executions: “Don’t advise, don’t prescribe, don’t inject. Let the death penalty die a natural death.” Noting that courts are now considering whether the death penalty by lethal injection should be outlawed as inhumane, the editorial points out that the procedure was largely developed without the input of…
Read MoreMay 12, 2006
NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Urges Further Investigation of Texas Execution
A recent op-ed by Theodore Shaw, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, urged a full and fair investigation into the case of Ruben Cantu, a Texas man who may have been innocent of the murder for which he was executed in 1993. Shaw noted that Cantu’s case was “fraught with systemic errors,” including the fact that his conviction was based on a single eyewitness identification by a man who has said he was pressured by police. Shaw praised…
Read MoreMay 10, 2006
EDITORIALS: Life Without Parole is the Better Option for Wisconsin
A recent editorial in the La Crosse Tribune urged Wisconsin legislators to maintain the state’s ban on capital punishment. The editorial discouraged the state from reinstating capital punishment because it does not deter crime and is often unfairly applied, stating that there is no need to bring back the death penalty because the state already has the sentence of life without parole. Legislators recently voted to hold a non-binding referendum on restoring the death penalty, though the two…
Read MoreApr 03, 2006
Washington Supreme Court Closely Divided on Rationality of State’s Death Penalty
The Washington State Supreme Court recently came within one vote of effectively abolishing the state’s death penalty when it ruled in the case of death row inmate Dayva Cross. Cross is on death row for the murder of his wife and her two teenage daughters. Attorneys for Cross had argued that their client should not be executed because killers who had committed worse crimes had been spared the death penalty. The 2003 case of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, who received a life sentence in…
Read MoreApr 01, 2006
American Judicature Journal
Judicature Journal Examines Impact of Death Penalty on Justice…
Read MoreMar 27, 2006
NEW VOICES: Victims Do Not Necessarily Want Revenge
Victims of violence and terror are not necessarily well served by a system that promises “closure” in the form of the death penalty, according to a recent Washington Post column by Dahlia Lithwick. Among other cases, the author questions the assumptions in the federal government’s case against Zacarias Moussaoui as it relates to the needs of the family members from the September 11th attack: The death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui has been touted by the government as a way to bring…
Read MoreMar 22, 2006
EDITORIAL: “Should the issue of life or death be trusted to a system that can get guilt or innocence wrong?”
After members of the Wisconsin Senate passed a resolution calling for a referendum on reinstating the death penalt, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial criticized the vote and urged members of the state Assembly to reject the proposal. ThoughWisconsin has not had the death penalty since 1853, the state legislature has considered a reinstatement measure during each of the past 20 years. The Sentinel voiced concerns about innocence, race, deterrence, and a variety of other issues in its…
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